Driver tracking is a long standing problem with broad applications for parents, company and fleet vehicles, rental car agencies, and vehicle insurance carriers. Previous solutions do not provide an ability to automatically and reliably track individual drivers when they are operating a vehicle. For each of these functions, establishing the identity of a driver for a vehicle with multiple drivers can be highly relevant, for example for an insurance carrier to assess the assumed risk when insuring the vehicle. Fleet management, parents, and other owners each have a special interest concerning the safe operation of vehicles.
Numerous efforts have been undertaken to monitor vehicle risk over time. A variety of systems have been proposed for monitoring vehicle behavior to assess risk, U.S. Pat. No. 6,064,970 Craig et. al., at times including geo-location as risk factors, U.S. Pat. No. 7,343,306 Bates et. al. All of these have two key limitations, including the inability to differentiate and measure behavior of individual drivers, and the reliance on input from manufacturer vehicle sensor systems through the on-board diagnostic system (OBD). As explained below, the OBD has its own set of problems, including that a plurality of the available data is generally proprietary to the manufacturer. The difficulties for interacting or even reading manufacturer proprietary sensors was the motivation for the new open source interface standard pioneered by Ford research known as OpenXC. Unfortunately only a handful of even Ford vehicles are OpenXC compatible. The risk of a vehicle accident is not the only reason to monitor vehicles and drivers. Another is vehicle maintenance.
Vehicles, particularly internal combustion engine powered vehicles, require the replacement of consumable components or resources for extended operation. The most obvious of these is the vehicle fuel. Fuel gauges (or charge gauges in the case of electric vehicles) are prominently displayed to the driver. Drivers can thus generally predict when the fuel stored on-board the vehicle will be consumed, and can replenish the consumed fuel before the vehicle is stranded.
A number of other components of vehicles need regular service in addition to refilling the fuel, but the determination of necessary service is not nearly as simple. This includes the engine lubrication, the engine coolant system, the vehicle braking friction surfaces, the lubrication and air intake filters, and spark plugs among others. Most important among these is the engine lubrication, which has a widely variable lifespan depending on, among other factors, the operation of the vehicle and the environment of the vehicle operation. Although these variances are well-known in the art, they are difficult to track, and most vehicle manufacturers recommend fixed intervals of vehicle mileage or time between servicing these vehicle components. Systems such as Jones U.S. Pat. No. 5,705,977 and Touhey U.S. Pat. No. 6,927,682 provide third-party solutions for notifying drivers of required service based on manufacturer recommended maintenance service intervals. These systems are limited in many respects, including their limitation for failing to account for variable vehicle operation and conditions.
Improved service interval reminder systems have been developed which account, in some manner, for vehicle operation, such as Bai U.S. Pat. No. 7,129,827, which provides maintenance service interval adjustments based upon vehicle operating time, and Muhlberger et. al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,900, a system for recommending service intervals based upon both mileage and various engine sensor readings used to detect high load conditions. Such modified service interval systems are useful, but suffer certain limitations. Systems such as Bai U.S. Pat. No. 7,129,827 do not factor the load condition or operating conditions of the vehicle which may have significant impact on the service requirements of the vehicle. Systems such as Muhlberger et al U.S. Pat. No. 4,533,900 rely upon engine sensor input, which may not be available for a particular vehicle and a connection to the vehicle odometer, which is generally only available to the vehicle manufacturer due to the security sensitivity of the odometer electronic signal access.
Currently, no service interval adjustment and notification system accounts for both mileage and load factors on the vehicle wear, without reliance upon a direct connection to the vehicle sensor systems.